Children's Literature in English: A Malaysian PerspectivebySiti Rohaini KassimShalini Teresa FernandezRoselinaJohari bt Mohd Khir

Introduction

The world of and for children is changing in so many different ways. Generally, everythingimproves through time. Similarly, asconditions improve, so too do general living conditions,including facilities to help children grow into mature and intelligent adults. One aspect ofthis improvement is the development of literacy among children. Literature, in this caseLiterature for Children is a very effective tool in developing literacy among children, toprepare them to better adapt to global scale changesas they grow.

Being a multicultural society, Malaysia has literary traditions and literature that reflect andoriginate from each cultural group, in the vernacular. In addition, we also have literature inEnglish,an inherited tradition that came down from our British colonisers. MalaysianLiterature in Englishat this stage is already a known entity, and recognised as a componentof Literatures in the various Englishesof the world. Literature for children in Malaysia,however, has had a somewhat vague beginning, and at this point in time, a glimpse intoliterature for children that are readily available in the market, would reveal the fact that asfar as material for improvement of literacy for children, particularly children's books, isconcerned, there is no dearth in the supply. However, the books and sundry material at aglance somehow fall short of showing a definite 'Malaysian-ness' in its contents; theliterature, in other words, is still quite unable to demonstrate its Malaysian identity. Whatthey do demonstrate, however, is the rationale for choices made by parents and publishers/

bookstores.

How then did Malaysian Literature for children arrive at the present stage? And where is itheading in the light of current trends in Literature? Some relevant questions that arecommon in discussing children'S literature in Malaysia include:

• How did our journey in being literate in Englishbegin?• What kind of books was used to introduce English into Malaysia/Malaya?• Does the history that we went through help shape the literature that we have for our

children now?

Looking around us, we observe numerous products that are all very useful in developingvarious kinds of literacy in our children, whilst having also to contend with issuessuch asidentity development through children'S books, social and moral development, mental

development and so on.

This paper is not strictly about tracing how literacy opportunities for Malaysian childrenhave developed through the years since colonial times. Rather, it seeks to share someobservations about the kind of literature for children that have had a part in contributing

towards the development of literature in English,and indirectly in literacy, for children inMalaysia. In doing this, the paper will briefly consider the development of Literature forchildren in English in Malaysia, through a glance at the kind of print and other multimediamaterial that make up Malaysian literature for children, at the same time comment on thedirection of Malaysian children's literature towards developing its own identity.

literacy and literature

'Literacy' asdefined by the Oxford EnglishDictionary (OED)could be summarised as• the quality or state of being literate, especially the ability to read and write.

• possessionof education.• a person's knowledge of a particular subject or field.

The reference to literacy in this paper alludes to one's possessionof education, andgenerally implying the ability to read and write. This senseof literacy assignsa broadermeaning to the term and allows for the third to describe 'multiple literacy' as the possessionof various literacies such as being computer literate aswell as being literate in music.

Among the various definitions for 'Literature' is the following clear explanation fromEncyclopedia Britannica Online, 2008. It explains Literature as

• a body of written works ...(a term) traditionally applied to those imaginative works ofpoetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceivedaesthetic excellence of their execution ...(and) classified according to a variety ofsystems, including language, national origin, historical period, genre, and subject

matter.

Hence 'Children's Literature' can generally be described in terms of

• the 'body of written works produced to entertain or instruct young people. Thegenre encompasses a wide range of works, including acknowledged classicsof worldliterature, picture books and easy-to-read stories, and fairy tales, lullabies, fables,folk songs, and other, primarily orally transmitted, materials. It emerged as a distinctand independent form only in the second half of the 18th century and blossomed inthe 19th century. In the 20th century, with the attainment of near-universal literacyin most developed nations, the diversity in children's books came almost to rival thatof adult popular literature. (Britannica ConciseEncyclopedia)

For the purpose of this paper, the discussion will consider literacy mainly from the point ofthe ability to read and write, differentiating between literature (small '1') as referring togeneral reading material, and Literature with a capital 'L' to refer to texts that have been

accepted as having strong cultural and literary value.

Forms of written literature for children

Written literature for children developed from the very simple, roughly constructedhornbook, invented in 1440, to the book format when the printing press was invented, to

the sophisticated electronic books and reading material that are catching up in popularitytoday. The subject matter of early written literature were intended mainly for the purposeof 'instruction', that is, teaching, specifically to teach children the alphabet, numerals, as

well as prayers.

As print culture develops, books for children became much more colourful, innovative, andinteresting, and varied in both form and subject matter. Development of print culture seesthe introduction of board books, picture books, interactive books for young children, and

short stories and novels for young adults.

From these print materials, with the introduction and advancement in multimediaproduction, there now exist various other representations of the stories that previouslywere available in the past only in print. These include film and other multimediarepresentations of children's literature, as well ascomputer and video games that providealternative literacies for children and young adults. For example, there have been variousfilm versions of Lewis Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as have Frank Baum's TheWonderful Wizard of Oz, not to mention the numerous games, toys and other paraphernaliathat have come into existence with the publication of JKRawling's Harry Potter series.

Children's Literature in the West: a brief overview

Historically, in the western tradition, what we have come to accept as Literature for childrendid not in fact begin as children's literature as such. Stories and fables were written mainlyfor the adult reader to read to children. In Europe, for example, as in many cultures of theworld, literature for children began in the oral tradition, in the form of myths and legendscreated and narrated to explain natural phenomena such as the existence of day and night,the changing seasons, and animal behaviours, and to passon tales of heroic feats. Thesetales also include ballads, sagas,and epic tales told by the fireside or in the royal courtswhere the audience were both adults and children. Many of these tales and were later

written down for children today.

As mentioned above, early literature for children developed as a tool for teaching,particularly teaching the alphabet, and prayers of the Christian faith. Stories and fables werepurely didactic in nature. In fact, early distinctive children's narratives in England and theUnited States consisted of what are considered gloomy and pious tales, mostly about deathsof sanctimonious children, for the education of Puritan boys and girls. An example of suchwork is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678). Later works however are less depressingand proved to be much more palatable for children, such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe(1719) and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). It should be pointed out, again, thatthese works, aswere some others, were originally written for adults but adapted for

children.

It was not until the C19th romantic period, a period generally recognized as the Golden ageof children's literature in the west, that Literature for children came into its own, with abody of works produced that genuinely belonged to children. For the first time children'sbooks contained fantasy and realism, fun and adventure, and many of the books writtenduring this period remained popular until today. Examplesof these include prominent works

by such writers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Kenneth Grahame ,

E.Nesbit, Rudyard Kipling, L.M Montgomery, and J.M Barrie to name a few.

Not only did children's Literature come to be accepted as a genre in its own right,developments in the genre also saw the publication of works that were to pave the way forrecognition of a broader definition of children's Literature, to include literature for youngadults. And taking children's literature into this young adult arena are such works as LouisaMay Alcott's realistic depiction of Victorian family life in Little Women (1868); the adventurestories of Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and Robert Louis Stevenson'sTreasure Island (1880) in all of which characters are fully developed, as is characteristic of

works written in the realistic tradition.

Another significant development of the period was the introduction of works translated intoEnglish. In this case, colonisation helped take the English language further afield, wideningthe world of the English-speaking child, particularly in the form of translation of children'stales from other European countries, as well as further abroad. Some of these include J. D.Wyss's Swiss Family Robinson (tr. from the German, 1814); Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio (tr. fromthe Italian, 1892); Felix Salten's Bambi (tr. from the German, 1928); as well as some storiestaken from the East and Middle East, such as translations of Middle Eastern stories from theArabian Nights collection. Other examples include such noteworthy publications as thetranslation of German folk tales into English in 1823 by the Grimm Brothers; the publicationof Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales in England in 1846; the compilation of Joseph JacobsEnglish folk tales at the end of C19th; and the folklorist Andrew Lang's series of fairy tales.Works in other sub-genre also came into existence, among which Edward Lear's Book ofNonsense (1846) and Robert Louis Stevenson's Child's Garden of Verses (1885) stood out ashaving set the style for much of the poetry written for children today. In addition, LewisCarroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1872)combine lunacy and fantasy with satire and word games. Equally significant was thepublication of children's magazines at the turn of the century, the most important of which

was the St. Nicholas Magazine (1887-1943).

The ground-breaking works found in the C19th continued into C20th, with many morefascinating publications that succeeded in placing children's books in a distinct positionwithin the genre of Literature for children, at the same time generating innumerablesubgenres of children's literature. Notable examples of C20th fantasy include L. FrankBaum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1927), P. l.Travers'sMary Poppins (1934), J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937), c. S. Lewis's "Narnia" series, E. B.White's Charlotte's Web (1952) and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970), and of course J. K.Rowling's best-selling Harry potter books of wizardry and magic (1997-).

A point also worthy of note is the fact that novels for children include many of the literary,psychological, and social elements found in its adult counterpart. Remarkable books withsophisticated emphasis on plot, mood, characterization, or setting include among others,Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows (1908), Esther Forbes's Johnny Tremain (1944),Joseph Krumgold's And Now Miguel (1953), and Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins(1961), whilst a more mature treatment of the emotions of growing up could be interpretedfrom Irene Hunt's Up a Road Slowly (1966). By the time children's literature enters the

C2ist, children's Literature is well into being a significant genre in itself, with academicinstitutions the world over running courses in Literature for children and young adults, somewith a full-fledged department of its own; and children's Literature being presented invarious forms, from print, to film and electronic multimedia.

The brief overview above is of central significance in that it highlights the fact that through along tradition of children's literature, the West specifically, has had all the opportunities tofully develop children's literacy to the position that it is today.

A Malaysian tradition in Children's literature

If Western children's literature is recognised today as being a genre in its own right, whatcan be said about literature for children and young adults in Malaysia? Malaysia being amultiracial, multicultural nation, and each racial component having its own culturaltraditions, how do we even begin to recognise a Malaysian tradition in children's literature?What elements go onto the palette in order that a true representation could be painted ofthe Malaysian literature for children? Specifically, how far has literature for children inEnglish been part of the Malaysian children's literary tradition? These are some verypertinent issues that remain to be explored if at all a single identity in literature in Englishfor Malaysian children and young adults were to be posited.

Children's literature in Malay

As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, literature for children in the Malay language beganas an oral tradition _ narratives related to children for purposes of teaching moral andreligious values". Stories suchAngan Mat lenin, Pak Pandir, Sang Kanci/, for example, allcontain lessons to be learnt. On another level, a brief survey of the literature seems to pointto the fact that in Malaysia, children's books in the Malay language have had a much earlierbeginning compared to those in English.Similar to the tradition in the west, these earlybooks were written for the specific purpose of developing literacy, specifically the skills ofreading and writing. Many of these books were written by Christian missionaries, who cameto Malaya to spread the faith, and realising that before this could be done, the problem ofilliteracy among the locals had first to be resolved. Hence, the existence of such titles asMen%ng Sega/a Anak (1818), Buku Pelajaran Bahasa Melayu (1838, 1847), and BudakHampir Tenggelam (1844) alongside books that directly or indirectly propagate Christianreligious teachings such asHenry (1840), Kisah-kisah Kitab /njil (1844) and Harry Be/ajar(1846) (cited in Md Sidin Ishak, 2005). At the end of C19th, with the direct involvement ofthe English colonial government in the education of the local people, school texts andreaders flooded the market through formal publishing houses that took on the responsibilityof supplying schools with recommended texts and readers. The contents of these bookswere in the main translations and adaptations of English classics.However, there were alsocontents the sources of which were well-known Malay hikayat and syair such asHikayat

Amir Hamzah and Syair Siti zubaidah.

1For an overview of Literature for children in the Malay language, refer to Md Sidin Ahmad Ishak.Perkembangan Sostero Kanak-kanak di Malaysia: Buku Melayu Mencari Nafas Baru. Cerdik Publications, 2005.

Local publishing houses, most notable of which was Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, also playedand continues to playa crucial part in developing literature for children and young adults inthe Malay language, through publication facilities made more easily accessible to thewriters. A survey of books for children and young adults published by DBP shows clearevidence of the support it gave and still gives to local writers, which directly helps build anenriched collection of quality works by writers, to the point that Malay literature forchildren and young adults perhaps has now developed into a local canonical tradition.

Children'S literature in English

Early books in English for children in Malaysia were published mainly as an effort tointroduce the English language into Malaya, as part of the British colonial government'scolonising programme. In fact, records indicate that one of the British colonial government'sagenda was to introduce English into the existing education system without disrupting theexisting local system of education particularly since vernacular schools were already inexistence then, seeking to eventually make English the medium of instruction ingovernment-aided schools. The syllabus introduced was the English school syllabus, bringingin poetry, drama, short stories or novels, the teaching of which were geared towardspreparing students for the English assessment system - the Junior or Senior Cambridgeexaminations. Books were initially brought in from England. The contents of these, althoughpresented in simple English, were however naturally Eurocentric in essence. The presentwriter recalls an early English lesson that she had, in which she was introduced, withappropriate illustrations, to the following short simple sentences and phrases: 'This is a pan;this is a man; a man and a pan; a pan and a man'. Meaning is made clear by the illustrations,which included an oversized pan being held by a diminutive man. However, being kampong-born and raised, the writer could not figure out what a pan really was as it looked so much

different from the 'periok', 'be/anga' or 'kuali' that her mum had at home.

Literature in English was introduced as part of the material for teaching the Englishlanguage. So a typical English lesson may involve reading excerpts from or prose versions ofShakespeare, random poems such as wordsworth's 'The Daffodils', 'The Highwayman' byAlfred Noyes, or Stevenson's 'The Land of Counterpane'. Again, these were so much out ofthe cultural context of Malaysian students that many found the lessons difficult, simplybecause they could not really visualise what a daffodil looked like, much less imagine who orwhat a highwayman was. Nevertheless, these problems notwithstanding, this move by theBritish colonial government paved the way for the development of literacy through a systemof education in which English was an important element that has now developed into notonly an important second language for interethnic communication for Malaysians in general

but also a valuable language for international and global communication.

After Independence, there were concerted efforts at making texts in English more accessibleto local children. Malaysian writers were and are encouraged to produce works that portraya consciously Malaysian cultural background. Hence as far as books and other print materialwere concerned, these have provided a rich ground for literacy development in general.

As Malaysia approaches its more than five decades of independence, there is also now astronger and more definite sense of awareness of the importance of literacy developmentin all its various forms including that of English as a strong language of international 'communication. As part of the endeavour to create and develop a unified Malaysia, amidstits characteristically multicultural attributes, children's literature in English has its role toplay in the nurturing processes of young Malaysians. There is now the steady and readyavailability of children's literature in various forms, print and multimedia. What is moreimportant in this case is the fact that there is also an increasingly stronger support from the

general public as well as the government.

Reading material in English that have been available for Malaysian children may roughly be

categorised into two broad categories as follows:

1) Traditional importsThese include works for very young and preadolescent children that are directly brought inor local reprints or re-presentations of traditional European and British folk and fairy tales,most popular among which are those by Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm Brothers,Beatrix Porter to name a few for preadolescents. From the moment they learn to recognisethe alphabet, Malaysian children have had their fair share of nursery rhymes and stories,bedtime and otherwise, told to them by doting and determined parents who want to havean early start on their children's literacy in English. Hence the early introduction to Baa, baablack sheep, Mary had a little lamb, Jack and the beanstalk, Cinderella, Snow White and soon. Stories and novels for older age group include traditional fairy and folk tales includingstories such as Baum's The wonderful wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Heidi, Little women,to name a few; adventure stories ranging from Defoe's Robinson Crusoe to Stevenson'sKidnapped; animal stories such as Black Beauty, Call of the wild, Bambi etc. These readingmaterial are all European in origin and essence. What give them the overtly Malaysian touchand identity are mainly the illustrations, if these are re-presented by Malaysian publishers.Various versions of these fairy tales are readily available in the market. One good point inhaving this category of children's books is that they provide excellent models of idiomaticuse of English are therefore particularly very popular among parents who want to develop

good English in their children.

2) Local publications - adaptations and originalHaving pointed out the above however, in the local scene there now exist alongside'imported' children's literature, a proliferation of local works written and published by localwriters and publishers. These materials are clearly Malaysian based, and in as many avariety of formats of children's literature as are found in western literature - picture books,board books, novels, nursery rhymes and so on. Many do still show influences from westerntraditions, as is common in most postcolonial works, but there is a clear sense of worksdeveloping a Malaysian identity. works such as Daphne Lee's Red Flower, and Sweet PinkPosies, or collections of local folk tales and other types of works as those found in Timeless

Tales of Malaysia and other more current works.

CONCLUSION

Literature is very strongly linked to literacy. When we investigate beginning literacy forchildren, we assume it begins with exploring the ability to read and write, and from amongthe many different approaches to developing literacy, the use of children's literature-stories, songs and rhymes - stands out as being a very efficient and the most commonlyused tool. In Malaysia, children's literature in Englishhas been enriched by its historical andcultural background, both being relevant influences that have helped shape and influenceits growth both as a genre aswell as support material for the improvement of literacyamong children and young adults in Malaysia. As a result of influences from Malaysia'scolonial past, children's literature in English, cannot escape from being Eurocentric incharacter to some extent. However, there is growing awareness as well concerted effortsfrom various quarters - publishers, government ministries, parent-teachers associations etc_in inculcating a Malaysian identity in literacy material for the consumption of children andyoung adults in general. In addition, recent developments in publishing, information andcommunication technology, (ICT)aswell asmultimedia production have broadened thescope for improvement of children's literacy through Literature. Various interpretations andre-presentations of traditional children's literature have all helped to enhance literacyopportunities. These include film representations and interpretations that provide freshapproaches to literary works in film versions such asAlice in Wonderland, The Lion, theWitch and the Wardrobe from the Narnia series, Lord of the Ring by JRRTolkein, andderivatives and re-presentations such as Toy Story, Shrek, The Frog Princess, to name a few.Other forms of derivatives include varieties of computer games and board games, comicbooks and mango representations of literary texts, including a multitude of other productsthat are derived from children's literature that have their roles to play in developingmultiple literacies in children. In short, in considering the development of literacy throughchildren's literature in Malaysia, there is no shortage of facilities, opportunities andmaterial. What needs to be done now is to further investigate how far we have movedtowards developing a Malaysian identity in children's Literature in English, to ensure thatchildren's literature in both BahasaMelayu and English run on par, which would have a far-reaching implication for a future for Malaysian children to survive in a world that isfiguratively becoming smaller through globalisation.

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